Ghent & Antwerp

The train from Bruges to Ghent took about 40 minutes. We didn't really know where we were going once we were there, but we guessed right!!! We took a tram into the city center, dropping us off in front of 1 of the 3 towers (3 towers are the Cathedral, Belfry, and the Church, see 1st picture). We found an information center that gave us a map and other information. We weren't planning on staying in Ghent overnight so we had our luggage with us, which was pretty annoying on the cobblestone walk and roads. Not to mention the entire city (at least the city center) was under MAJOR construction; craters in the Earth, like a bomb went off, which made wheeling around a suitcase even more difficult. Luckily, Chelsea spotted a Marriott and we went inside and told them we had stayed at a Marriott in Brussels and asked if they would hold our luggage for a few hours. Thankfully they said yes!!! That made our lives much easier!!! After we unloaded all of our stuff we took a boat ride in the River Leie along the Graslei (in the 2nd picture I'm standing on Saint Michael's Bridge overlooking the River Leie and the Graslei), one of the most scenic places in Ghent's city center. The boat ride was really nice, long too. We saw the castle, which was awesome because it wasn't a palace like Buckingham Palace or the Palais Royal in Brussels. It was a CASTLE, like from a movie (3rd picture). After the boat ride we wandered around for a bit. We had another waffle with Nutella, soooooo good!!! We also stopped for some delicious hot chocolate at a chocolate store. Ghent was really nice, I definitely want to spend more time there. It wasn’t touristy in that there were not many souvenir shops, which was really amazing because it made the city seem untainted in a way, which is unusual I think. After some walking around it started to rain a little so we decided to go back to the Marriott, grab our luggage, and head to the train station to catch a train to Antwerp.

We arrived in Antwerp and headed for our hotel, which was not far at all. We were staying outside of the city center so we did not take the train to the central station, we stopped at a smaller one. We checked in, dropped our stuff off at our room, relaxed for a bit, then headed back downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We both tried a Flemish dish of chicken, potatoes, and cheese-delicious!!! Really filling, so good!!! After dinner we just relaxed in our room and went to bed. In the morning we checked out and took a tram to the central station. We dropped our luggage off at a locker in the station then went out to grab some breakfast. Antwerp is the diamond center of Belgium, and really of all of Europe too. Nearly 80% of the world’s diamonds pass through Antwerp at least once, thus our visit to the diamond museum! We were a little disappointed that there wasn’t any ACTUAL diamonds in the museum. However, it was interesting and pretty informative so worth going. After the museum we were prepared to go shopping!!! Many people have told us that Antwerp is a place to shop, especially around the Central Station. This being the case we were really excited!!! NEVER did we think about what day it was, Sunday. Apparently, in Antwerp on Sundays, NOTHING is opened. LITERALLY NOTHING. Not one store. We just wandered the streets, along with everybody else. It was the strangest thing, we didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t anything pretty to look at either, no gothic, medieval architecture there :( We decided to head to Amsterdam a few hours early. The 4th picture is of the Antwerp Centraal Station, right next to the Diamond Museum and the 5th is something touristy we found :)